Lumentum held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new Greensboro, North Carolina manufacturing facility, marking the next step in its plan to expand U.S. production of advanced indium phosphide devices for AI data centers. The 240,000-square-foot facility, about 22,300 square meters, was acquired from Qorvo and will be retrofitted to produce continuous wave and ultra-high-power lasers.
The event brought together Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston, North Carolina state and local officials, NVIDIA government affairs executive Ned Finkle, Guilford County leaders, Greensboro officials, and representatives from the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce. Lumentum said NVIDIA will serve as a customer of the site, supporting previously announced strategic agreements tied to AI infrastructure and optical supply continuity.
The facility will expand Lumentum’s manufacturing capacity using 6-inch InP wafers, with production expected to ramp in mid-2028. Lumentum plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars over several years while preserving and creating more than 400 U.S. manufacturing jobs.
• Location: Greensboro, North Carolina
• Facility size: 240,000 square feet, about 22,300 square meters
• Technology focus: InP-based optical devices, CW lasers, and ultra-high-power lasers
• AI infrastructure role: optical components for scale-out and scale-up data center networks
• Production timeline: ramp expected in mid-2028
• Jobs impact: more than 400 U.S. manufacturing jobs preserved or created
“Our customers are building the infrastructure that will define the next era of computing,” said Michael Hurlston, Chief Executive Officer of Lumentum. “Adding this new InP manufacturing facility significantly expands our capacity, deepens our strategic partnerships, and ensures we can deliver the performance, reliability, and scale required for the AI revolution.”
Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston cuts the ribbon. Attending: Lee Lilley – Secretary of Commerce, North Carolina Department of Commerce; J. Carlvena Foster – Vice-Chair, Guilford County Board of Commissioners; Marikay Abuzuaiter – Mayor of Greensboro; Marvin Price – EVP, Greensboro Chamber of Commerce
🌐 Analysis: Lumentum’s Greensboro expansion ties AI data center growth directly to domestic photonics manufacturing, especially for InP lasers used in high-speed optical connectivity. The NVIDIA customer relationship also shows how AI infrastructure supply chains now extend beyond GPUs and switches into the optical component layer that supports scale-out and scale-up architectures.
🌐 Analysis: NVIDIA’s $2 billion strategic investment in Lumentum, announced on March 2, 2026, provides a direct capital injection into a constrained layer of the AI infrastructure stack: high-performance photonics. The transaction—structured as the purchase of 2,876,415 shares of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock at $695.31 per share, convertible one-for-one into common stock—pairs equity alignment with a multi-billion-dollar purchase commitment for advanced laser components. The structure signals a deliberate vertical alignment strategy as AI clusters scale toward 800G and 1.6T interconnects, where indium phosphide laser supply becomes a bottleneck for pluggables, linear-drive optics, and emerging co-packaged optics designs. By locking in both capacity and roadmap alignment with Lumentum, NVIDIA reduces exposure to supply constraints, improves visibility into component scaling, and ensures that optical interconnect performance keeps pace with its rapidly advancing GPU and system architectures.
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